CHAPTER XVIII
CATCHING THE THANKSGIVING TURKEY
IT was the night before Thanksgiving rather than Christmas, and in the house all was quiet as a mouse. But not so in the barnyard. Everything there was confusion and hubbub for the biggest, fattest turkey gobbler of the flock was to be captured and killed for the Thanksgiving feast. He had lived to see all his flock slain with the exception of a young gobbler and three or four turkey hens. Consequently when he saw a boy and a man come into the barnyard and walk toward him, holding out hands filled with corn and wheat, he had his suspicions. He had seen sixty or seventy members of his flock go up to men to eat from their hands only to be grabbed by the neck and carried off, never to be seen again. It was because of this that when anyone offered him anything to eat, no matter what it was, he drew in his feathers, stuck out his neck and ran for dear life and hid until they had left the barnyard.
It was growing dusk now and he had just fallen into a doze as he rested in his usual roosting place on the lower limb of an old oak tree behind the woodpile. Suddenly he was rudely awakened by someone catching hold of one of his legs. He roused with a start to find it was a big boy trying to capture him. With a spasm of fear he flapped his wings and tried to fly to a higher limb, but he was unable to do that for the boy grasped one of his legs firmly and pulled him back.
Just then the gobbler spied Billy Whiskers standing by the woodpile and he gobbled for him to aid him. “Save me! Save me, Billy!”
In a flash Billy ran up the woodpile on which the boy was standing. This started the wood to rolling, and the boy was forced to release the turkey’s leg or have his own broken in a fall.
“Oh, Billy, why can’t you mind your own business and not stick your nose into what doesn’t concern you?” he exclaimed.
The moment the old gobbler was released, he tried to decide which would be the safer place for him; higher up in the tree or a new hiding place altogether. But where would that be? If he flew into another tree, they would see him. If he chose the barn, they would follow him. Likewise if he ran behind any of the straw stacks, they would follow there.
Oh where, oh where should he go? While the boy was getting off the woodpile was his only chance for the man would soon return from chasing the young gobbler and turkey hens. At last he decided to run into the barn as there were numerous dark corners there where he could hide. Once his mind was made up, it did not take long for him to fly out of the tree and, half flying, half running, he made his way to the barn. He went to the back door as that was out of sight of the man who was chasing the other turkeys round and round the barn, over barrels and under fences and about pigsties, with Billy Whiskers getting in his way just when he reached out to take hold of a fowl and it would escape. The man called Billy every name he could think of, and threw stones at him too, but what cared he when he was doing his friends, the turkeys, a good turn? He could not stand by and hear the pitiful call of the turkeys and not try to do something to save them.
Once the man succeeded in catching a young gobbler, and had him under his arm carrying him away to have his head chopped off, when the turkey called, “Billy, save me quickly or it will be too late! He is carrying me to the block to chop off my head! I have seen all my brothers and sisters go this terrible way. Oh, quick, Billy, quick! Do something or it will be too late!”
Billy baaed back to the poor panic-stricken young turkey, “I will! I will save you!” and all the other fowls in the barnyard and even the pigs in the pens and the cows standing around chewing their cuds called out, “Oh, hurry, Billy, hurry or you will be too late!”
The man was almost to the fatal block but Billy was creeping up still closer and closer to him until he was only six feet away. Then with a little bound Billy gave the man a butt that sent man, turkey and all away over the block, the fellow falling on his face and releasing the turkey as he fell. The moment that turkey found itself free it ran toward the barn and quickly disappeared in the darkness within.
The man was so intensely angry at Billy that he picked up a club and started in pursuit of him. But he might just as well have attempted to catch a whirlwind as Billy when he was on the run. However, he chased him away out into the pasture until Billy took the path to the lake. Then he realized it was useless to follow any further as he would be unable to overtake him before he reached the lake, and he knew if he followed that far Billy would swim it and he could not do that in late November with any comfort. So back he went to the barnyard grumbling to himself, “Well, if I can’t catch that turkey, I will another if I have to stay up all night to do it!”
When he reached the barnyard he heard Mr. Watson and Hiram as well as the two boys laughing so he hurried on to see what they were finding so funny. He arrived just as it was all over, though he did see Hiram shaking himself and picking hay out of his hair with one hand as with the other he held out to Mr. Watson the big turkey gobbler, dead. Yes, the one that had been up in the tree and had run to the barn to hide. He had flown into the mow to hide and Hiram had seen a long turkey feather fluttering on the hay of the loft as if it had just been dropped. Climbing up the ladder, he saw Mr. Turkey trying to hide himself in the hay. After a long chase and many a fall for both man and turkey, as hay is difficult to run on, Hiram succeeded in catching him. He was going toward the ladder to descend to the barn floor and in the dim light of the mow he did not see the hay chute. Before he knew it, he had walked straight into the opening and had slid to the bottom, landing on his head and shoulders, but with the turkey still clasped to his breast. In some way the turkey’s neck had been twisted in the fall and when they looked at him after Hiram stood up, they found him dead. But he died in a good cause for the next day he with two other turkeys made all the family and several of their most intimate neighbors happy as they feasted on his tender meat thickly covered with rich gravy.
Such a dinner as that was! The table fairly groaned under the load of goodies. Two tables had been put together and they extended through the dining room into the living-room, furnishing seats for twenty, to say nothing of a third table spread for the children so they would not have to wait until the grown-ups had eaten. You see Mrs. Watson thought it cruel to make children wait when in all probability they were hungrier than the grown-ups as children always have healthy appetites while some adults suffer with dyspepsia. There were several servants to wait on the table, as Mrs. Watson had seen to that. She did not like to jump up and down when she acted as hostess. And neither did she have the dinner served in courses, with the exception of the soup and dessert.
The tables were most tastily decorated with strings of cranberries and the dishes were garnished with all sorts of flowers cut from vegetables. There were roses cut from beets, white roses formed from mashed potatoes, tulips cut out of yellow carrots, and so forth. The turkeys were festooned with cranberries and surrounded with vegetable flowers. But the most gorgeous thing on the entire table was a graceful basket of fruit and flowers combined. Here and there peeked out a yellow grapefruit beside a red, red apple, while a bunch of blue or white grapes cuddled next a banana or tangerine, all arranged in a most artistic manner, with a bunch of huge Malaga grapes tied to the handle with a bright scarlet ribbon bow.
This basket was flanked on either side by a little pig roasted whole with a red apple in its mouth, while at both ends of the table rested the big twenty-pound turkeys browned to a turn. Here and there were vegetable dishes heaped high with fluffy mashed potatoes sprinkled with paprika. There were also candied sweet potatoes half hidden in their candy dip, while sparkling glass dishes held molds of cranberries, preserved cherries, pickled peaches, candied watermelon rind and many kinds of salted nuts. All these things were on the tables at once, including a delectable fruit salad. After the table was cleared of these viands, the dessert was carried in, and I know all the guests wondered how they could eat it. It consisted of mince pie, apple pie, cranberry pie and pumpkin pie served with cheese, followed by ice-cream with chocolate sauce poured over it, angel cake, chocolate layer cake and nut cake, while sweet cider made right on the farm sparkled in the glasses and the aroma of the best of coffee arose from the cups.
“I shall not be able to eat for a week after this dinner, Mrs. Watson,” said one of her guests on leaving the table.
“Oh, yes, you will,” replied the hostess. “Mr. Watson always says the same thing but by seven-thirty he is ready to eat again and he says, ‘Did I hear you say, mama (that is what he always calls me) that we are not going to have any supper after our late dinner? Well, I don’t mind much, but I feel as if I could wash down a small piece of cold turkey and a stalk or two of celery.’ And I always tell him if he feels that way, to go to the ice-box and help himself. Which he does and I can’t see but what he eats as heartily as if he had not had such a heavy dinner. But then he is so passionately fond of turkey and the things which go with it.”
After dinner the men were smoking and the ladies were upstairs primping and chatting when everyone was startled by the most terrific banging of tin cans. It sounded as if a whole tin shop was being wrecked.
They all ran to the windows to see what was happening and what they saw caused gales of laughter, for there was Billy Whiskers running around frantically trying to get the ice-cream freezer off his head. He had been nosing around and, discovering the freezer, had tasted the salt on the ice. In endeavoring to get more of the salt, Billy had upset the whole thing and his horns had been caught in the tub that held the freezer and the ice pack. The more he tried to get the tub off his head, the more it stuck.
He tossed his head up and down and tried to bang the tub on the ground and smash it, but it was too strongly made to break. The metal bands held it together. Then he rolled over and over, but no use. He got up and ran as fast as he could, but being unable to see where he was going, the first thing he knew he ran straight into the little duck pond half way down the hill. As he went in, he hit the edge of the tub on the concrete rim of the artificial pond—and he was free! But Billy was so disgusted that instead of coming out where he leaped in, he swam straight across the pond, climbed out and ran down the hill into the woods where he stayed until he recovered from his chagrin, for no one saw him until noon the next day. Billy could not stand it to have anything or anybody get the better of him.
With the exception of this one slight mishap every person at the dinner and every animal and fowl in the barnyard (for they had a double portion to eat, too, as it was Thanksgiving) declared it was the best Thanksgiving Day they had ever passed.